Thursday, August 10, 2006

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised - But Your Blog Comments May Be

The following is already known by faithful followers of my cable access show. (Okay, quit snickering, it could happen.) At least I didn't have the temerity to call them fans. Okay, as the viewers of my cable access program already know, the Emmy-winless "Born to Slack" show has begun to include comments received here at the Portland Freelancer on the air. It's not an ego stroke. Neither my co-host James Shibley nor I are particularly good at handling compliments, but of course that hasn't been much of a problem so far. These comments are invariably negative - if you're attempting to make the on-air presentation, gushing praise will not help, unless there is some kind of deeply sarcastic undertone. What I've gone with are the noteworthy forms of criticism - avoiding just the straight ahead put-downs. For example, Friday night at 11, on channel 11, will be the final airing of the Elizabeth comment that set the bar for all future participation. She's the one who read my post, became so upset that she immediately went to the fridge and began drinking. Then she stayed in bed till 1:30 in the afternoon. The reason was that her friend had sent my words without saying who wrote them and Elizabeth thought her friend had written them - meaning her friend had crossed to the dark side. That is what upset her. Oh well, the details aren't important. What is important is that one of my posts caused a visitor to this site to react so horribly that she immediately started drinking and climbed back into bed to recover. In the Portland Freelancer world, that is a major victory.